What Keeps an Industrial Cybersecurity Expert up at Night? with Jonathan Tubb of Siemens Energy

What keeps industrial cybersecurity experts up at night? What do they do to protect America's power grid from natural disasters and catastrophic acts of terrorism? How do they get energy and utility companies to prioritize cybersecurity and comply with critical infrastructure regulation?  

On this episode of the IoT: The Internet of Threats podcast, we met with Jonathan Tubb, Director of Industrial Cyber Security, North America, at Siemens Energy to explore what industrial cybersecurity looks like at a company that reported revenues of more than €28 billion for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2021 and has over 90,000 employees in more than 90 countries around the world. 

On this 25-minute episode of the podcast, Jonathan Tubb joins host Eric Greenwald to discuss:

• The threats that put America's power grid at risk
• Protecting the power grid from catastrophic acts of terrorism and natural disasters
• The varied approaches energy and utility companies take toward critical infrastructure regulation 
• How to get energy and utility companies to prioritize cybersecurity
• How engineers approach cybersecurity when moonlighting a microbrewery start-up

How do industrial cyber security engineers prepare for the worst-case scenarios?

Saying you have a cybersecurity program can be like hammering a stake in your front lawn announcing your alarm system. So what?

Beyond the semantics that often accompany corporate commitments to cybersecurity, what does actual preparation look like?  How do engineers view the risk of a cyberattack on critical infrastructure?

Check out this short video clip from our podcast episode where Jonathan Tubb explores how utility companies protect the power grid from catastrophic acts of terrorism and natural disasters. 

What's the most likely cyberattack we could see on our power grid?

In power generation, you need to be prepared for the worst. But what is the worst-case scenario that our power grid is most likely to face?

What do we need to be most prepared for?

Watch this short video clip from our episode and hear Jonathan Tubb describe the threats that put America's power grid at risk and the ones most likely to materialize.

Episode Details

Jonathan Tubb is a leader for industrial cybersecurity in North America with Siemens Energy, one of the world's largest energy technology companies. In his role at Siemens Energy, Jonathan applies his extensive expertise to developing solutions to the company's biggest security challenges by identifying and mitigating threats in critical infrastructure environments. Jonathan earned his B.S. in Computer Engineering at Ohio State University and maintains a Professional Engineer (P.E.) license in Computer Engineering.

Episode Links

All episodes of Finite State’s “The Internet of Threats” podcast can be heard on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Listen to this episode in its entirety below!